


Can You Hear the Tick of a Watch in Space?

by dewdropple



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Gay Characters, M/M, Multi, Murder Mystery, No Sex, Nonbinary Character, Some Graphic Violence, The Skeld (Among Us), also the ship isn't exactly like the skeld but it is based on it, it's not a happy story, light alcoholism, lots of lgbtq peeps, multiple characters die, no beta we die like men, the end is kinda scary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:42:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27274384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dewdropple/pseuds/dewdropple
Summary: It was going well until the alarm started blaring. The lights dimmed and the red glow of the emergency lights matched the palpitations of the alarm. Diagnostics said that the problem was in the reactor, but Green had no idea what specifically. That was Orange’s job. She should’ve been taking care of “her baby” but no, now things are taking a turn for the worse and Green has no idea what to do about it.Stumbling their way through the dark, Green bumped into someone in the red-lit hallway. Yellow. At least someone else had the right idea to figure out what in tarnation was going on.“Oh! Green!” she stumbled, “D-do you have any idea what’s happening?”Or, Green is just trying to do their job when signs of a traiterous imposter start popping up as the crew begin to die. It's a race against the steady beat of time to solve this mystery.
Relationships: Blue/Pink (Among Us), Cyan/Pink (Among Us), Green/Purple (Among Us), Purple/Red (Among Us)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	1. A Question

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Long time reader, first time poster! This is my first work so criticism is welcomed!  
> I've written out the whole story so far and I think the later chapters are definitely better than the first two.  
> I plan on adding a chapter everyday, so come back tomorrow for more
> 
> Also, I might be forgetting a few things in the tags, so let me know and I will update accordingly!

It was going well until the alarm started blaring. The lights dimmed and the red glow of the emergency lights matched the palpitations of the alarm. Diagnostics said that the problem was in the reactor, but Green had no idea what specifically. That was Orange’s job. She should’ve been taking care of “her baby” but no, now things are taking a turn for the worse and Green has no idea what to do about it.

Stumbling their way through the dark, Green bumped into someone in the red-lit hallway. Yellow. At least someone else had the right idea to figure out what in tarnation was going on.

“Oh! Green!” she stumbled, “D-do you have any idea what’s happening?”

Green didn’t say anything as they grabbed Yellow’s hand and pulled her toward the reactor room.

It was darker in the reactor room, more so than the hallway. The sole light came from a spinning orb in the middle of a massive machine.

“Thank goodness you’re here!” a voice sprung from a darkened corner. “Someone pull a lever on the other side of the room. It’s the red one.”

Green dropped Yellow’s hand as they ran over to the lever. It was almost impossible to make out the colors between the varying levers. Green took their best guess and pulled one. The alarm stopped. The lights came back on. The reactor began humming its lullaby again.

Yellow stood in shock, still taking everything in. Orange walked in from around a machine in the far corner of the room.

“Thank you so much guys! Everything’s looking good, but I guess I wasn’t as thorough as I normally am. You can head out if you want while I figure out what exactly went wrong.”

Green just nodded their head. As long as there wasn’t another reactor failure in the future, they’d be happy. “Come on Yellow,” they said, “we should get back to work.”

They were just heading out when a smaller alarm went off on their watches.

“Guess there’s a debriefing,” said Yellow.

Green shrugged. They could probably guess what the emergency meeting was for, but with this crew, it might’ve been that someone had eaten the last donut.

Green, Yellow, and Orange instead left the other way down the hallway, toward the cafeteria where they met with everyone already sitting around a table in the center of the room. Or almost everyone. There was one chair empty even as Green, Yellow, and Orange took their seats.

Cyan and Red were hunched toward the table, staring each other down, while Pink glanced between the two. The tension was thick in the air until Lime spoke up. 

“Okay, so the alarm went off, is the reactor fixed, then?”

“For now,” said Orange, “I still have to check why it went off.”

“That’s good. Um, well, we have a bit of a problem. You see, I was in Oxygen when the alarm started going off, and I ran over to the cockpit to see what was the matter, but when I got there,” Lime paused, playing with their gloves, “Whi-White, well, he was dead.”

Green sat back in their chair, confused. Being a part of a special force unit did have its dangers, like dealing with aliens or rebel spies. The spies being the danger most pounded into them during training, but Green never would have thought to be on one of those ships they read about in example problem after example problem. They could see why the room was so tense now.

“What happened to him?” asked Purple, the medic on this trip.

“It just might be better to s-show you after this,” fumbled Lime, “I-I left the body like how I found it.”

It was quiet until Red pounded his hands on the table. “We all know what this means, right? There’s an imposter here! A rebel! Someone who wants to take us down! One! At! A! Time!” He pounded the table with his hands placing emphasis on each word.

“Well,” Pink spoke up, “do you have any ideas Red? Weren’t you on the cameras while this was going on?”

Red slowly retracted into his seat. “I didn’t-. I wasn’t on them. I was in shields.

“But it had to have been Cyan! He was acting all weird this morning!” Red was standing now, pointing a shaking finger at Cyan across the table.

Blue put his hands up. “Now, now, let’s calm down a little bit. We don’t know who did it or what was going on. Let’s just all go around and say what we were doing this morning up until the alarm went off.”

Red sat back down with a huff, arms crossed.

“Lime, you go first.”

“Okay, so I was taking care of my plants, watering, feeding, measuring, you know. And it was getting to be a bit late in the morning, and you guys know I take late morning naps, so I kind of snuggled down and well, um, fell asleep.”

“You what?!?”

“Why not just head over to the barracks?”

“How could you fall asleep with that loud filter in Oxygen?”

“I don’t know!” Lime interrupted. “I don’t know, okay? But I took a nap and I woke up when the alarm started going off. I ran over to the cockpit, and that’s when I saw him.

“I tried to call a meeting right then and there, but with all of the lights flashing on my watch, I couldn’t click on the emergency meeting button. So I left and headed into the cafeteria where I found Pink, Blue, and Cyan.”

“So what were Pink, Blue, and Cyan doing?”

“I was cleaning out the garbage this morning,” Pink said.

“I was cleaning up from breakfast and working on lunch,” said Cyan.

“Bullshit,” whispered Red. Everyone ignored him and turned to Blue.

“I, well,” Blue began, “I guess I wasn’t really doing my job. I was supposed to be working on the engines, but I didn’t exactly get around to doing that this morning.”

“So what were you doing?”

“Helping Pink with his chores,” Blue rubbed the back of his helmet. “But when we heard the alarm, we saw Cyan run out from the kitchen and we just kind of hung out in the cafeteria until Lime came over and told us what they saw.”

Everyone seemed satisfied by Blue’s story. Green narrowed their eyes. But Blue appeared honest, so he earned trust points there.

“Purple?”

“I was in medbay working on blood samples from you guys. Have to monitor your health, you know? The alarm went off, but I was in the middle of my scan, actually, so I couldn’t immediately come down and help with the reactor. I came here when the emergency meeting was called.”

Orange piped up, “Well, I was in the reactor doing my daily checklist when it started going haywire. The alarm went off. I kind of know what went wrong, but to fix it, I needed another hand. Thankfully, Yellow and Green showed up, but I don’t exactly know who it was that helped me fix it, though.”

“It was me,” said Green, “I was in communications fixing the watch White had broke last week when the alarm went off. I figured I could head on over and help fix the reactor too when I bumped into Yellow outside of electrical. We both headed straight over to the reactor and I fixed it.”

Yellow nodded. “I was in electrical untangling some wires when the alarm went off. Green ran into me and we both ran to the reactor.”

“Well, someone killed White,” said Red. “We need to know who did it.”

“Listen, Red, we just might have to walk away from this meeting without an answer,” said Cyan. “You can hop on those cameras you sure are fond of and actually be useful now.”

“You little-” Red jumped up, lunging across the table.

“Hey, hey, hey, stop fighting!” Blue pushed Red back into his seat. “Now that White is dead, we need a plan. I know that everyone has had at least some sort of navigation experience from training, but is there anyone who thinks they’re good enough to take over for White?”

“I can,” said Green. “I don’t really have much to do now that White doesn’t need his watch back.”

“Alright everyone, be vigilant. If you see something suspicious, report it. Remember your training. Let’s get back to work now. Civilly.” Blue stood up.

Everyone else followed. Purple and Blue headed off toward the cockpit with Lime while the others either went back to their work or to the barracks. Green followed the small group over to the cockpit.

Everything seemed normal. The stars still flew past the window at the same speed. There weren’t too many lights blinking on the dashboard. Most of the seats sat perfectly pushed in on the consoles. The only thing out of place was White. He was slouched over, arm trailing to the ground. If Green hadn’t known he was dead, they might’ve thought White was simply napping.

When they came upon the body, Lime barely crossed the threshold into Navigation, their hands shaking as they wrung their gloves. They left about as quickly as the group got there. Purple was the opposite; she crept forward, squatted, and began disassembling White’s suit. Green hung back with Blue. Neither of them really knew what to do, but they were trying to stay out of Purple’s way.

White’s helmet slid off with a fizz of pressurized air. Green gasped. It was against so many protocols to take off the protective equipment. Even though they were on an enclosed ship with plenty of oxygen, it was still better safe than sorry with how many accidents happened because of faulty gas lines or rebel interference.

Green and Blue took small steps toward Purple and White, disturbed but intrigued. There didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary on White except for a small blue twinge in his face. Green blinked. It had been so long since they had seen a face besides their own. They weren’t even allowed to show each other’s faces in training, much less on a ship.

“Interesting,” muttered Purple, turning her specimen’s head this way and that. “I’ll have to do further analysis, but it looks like asphyxiation.”

Green shot Blue a look they knew he didn’t see. Blue’s visor was down, so they couldn’t see what Blue’s expression was, but Green knew it was one of morbid fascination. Green stepped around the trio to peer at the various dials and buttons. They could remember some training but the majority of it had already left them. Thankfully, nothing looked too out of the ordinary.

“I think the ship will be fine as long as no one touches the controls,” said Green, straightening up. “It’ll be like autopilot. We should still reach the colony in about five days.”

Blue nodded, still fixated on White.

Purple stood up. “While you guys are still here, can you help me take White back to the lab?”

They each grabbed a limb, letting the fourth one drag, and they carried White the best they could through the cafeteria and into the medbay, finally laying him on an examination table.

Purple began taking off the rest of his suit, but Green figured they’d had enough fun with a dead body for the day. It was back to communications. Maybe they could send a signal to a passing ship and radio for help.

As Green was walking back, they thought that this day was too weird to be real. This was all a dream. That’s it, all of the training about what to do in the case of rebels was causing this nightmare to happen and Green would wake up in the morning to a normal day aboard the ship. It was almost like the ship had gone back to normal, too. The reactor hummed as Green walked by. There was the fizzing of a welder in electrical. Pink camped out in storage playing cards with Cyan. Just like yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. They had only been on this ship for a week at most. But now of all days was the day that rebels thought to attack. It was one thing that White died from asphyxiation, maybe his suit was defective. It was another thing that the reactor went off randomly, Orange not doing her job properly. It was a whole new ballpark that they both happened on the same day, nay, at the same time. Yes, this was an imposter sabotage for sure.

Green rounded the corner into the communication room when it hit them. Nothing was out of place at first glance, but Green could feel something wasn’t right. The recorder in the back still spun its tapes, the dual computer monitors still spat out a continual stream of numbers. However, Green’s station was different. Their headphones were still plugged in, but, that’s it! They were on the chair instead of on top of the console. With a start, Green put on the headphones and jumped into the chair, trying to get a signal, any signal to ring in their ears.

Green tried flipping the switches, turning the knobs, using any knowledge they had to try and get it to work. By God, they were going to; comms was their specialty! If anyone could get it to work, it was them.

But to no prevail. Radio silence. Nothing but their heartbeat in their ears. Their only contact with the outside world was broken. The imposter had struck again.


	2. How High Can Tensions Rise and Not Drown You?

Green had been silently freaking out, not wishing to bring the broken comms up to anyone in case they were the imposter. The imposter knew that they knew, but no one else knew, so if Green wanted to live, they either had to tell everyone at once or not tell anyone at all.

But they’re screwed! They didn’t have any tasks they could do within their specialty. Well, they could go fiddle around in the cockpit, but they didn’t have a lot of working knowledge with that kind of stuff like they did with comms. And if someone were to walk by and not see Green pushing out their usual workload, something would definitely go down. Especially if it was Red. That paranoid prick.

Hushed voices could be heard the rest of the day, and crewmates were constantly looking over their backs, wondering if the person next to them would stab them in the back or slit their throat. People walked in groups of twos or threes. Green wandered the halls by themselves, not wanting to make an alliance now and get screwed over later. But a friend nearby would be handy in case things go south. As long as Green stayed silent about the broken comms, there wouldn’t be anyone who could push the suspicion on them.

Until Purple pulled them aside after dinner. She got them away from the group saying that she needed an updated scan from Green despite everyone already getting their daily scans done. Lime stood up and tried to follow, but Purple dismissed them, saying they’d only be gone for a few minutes. It wasn’t until they were fully in the medbay when Purple spoke again.

“It wasn’t asphyxiation. It was poison. I think it’s a substance that’s uncommon but not unheard of to find on a ship like this. However, it is pretty rare to have an amount onboard that’s lethal to people.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“Because, Green,” Purple took Green’s hands and pulled him deeper into the medbay. “I trust you. You couldn’t have killed White because you were with Yellow and Orange on the way to the reactor. This poison is fast-acting. They had to have immediately injected it and left.”

Green didn’t know how to feel. Of course they were innocent, but Purple seemed pretty confident about that.

“How do I know you’re not the imposter and you’re going to kill me later tonight?”

Purple sighed and let go of Green’s hands. “Because. Everyone else on this ship knows that you and I are alone right now. If you show up dead within the next few hours, I’m going to get tossed out of this ship on claims that I’m the traitor.”

That made enough sense. Purple was probably good. After all, she was the one that hopped into the scanner after Green earlier that morning, and those scans take a long time to run. She was more than likely still in there when the alarm went off.

“Okay, so you believe I’m not the imposter. Well, I also believe that you’re not the imposter, either.” Green could see Purple visibly sigh with relief. “I do have to tell you one thing just in case I do die tonight.”

Purple’s eyes glanced from Green to the door. It was now Green’s turn to take Purple’s hands.

“Someone broke the comms.”

Purple flinched, hands gripping under Green’s.

“I know, I tried to fix them, but they’re completely busted. We have no way to call for help.”

“But what about admin, or the cockpit, or… There has to be another place we can radio for help!”

“There isn’t. Trust me, comms are my specialty. But you’re the only person I’ve told. So if someone else knows that the comms are broken, it’s definitely them!”

Purple nodded, overwhelmed. “Then this really is an imposter attack. I thought we might’ve been extremely unlucky. Like White’s suit failed causing him to slouch and hit the reactor off switch or something.”

Green simply shook their head. “We can tell the others that though, when, when we give the final send-off.”

Purple nodded again, tears forming in her eyes. She doubled over, shock and grief getting to her.

Green gently set her down on the medbay floor but didn’t know what to do. So they squatted, awkwardly patting Purple’s hemlet as she wept.

Of course Green was upset, who wouldn’t be? Getting stuck on a ship with an imposter was a certain death sentence. Their only hope now would be to figure out who it was before they died.

White’s send-off was later that night. Purple had replaced his helmet to keep his identity anonymous. They had placed him on a make-shift bed with white paper flowers tucked into his hands. Someone began reciting a prayer and they set the body into the airlock. Lime and Purple were in the back, holding on to each other, weeping. Green couldn’t notice if anyone else was as sad, but they themselves weren’t too attached to White. All part of training. After the ship landed, hopefully with everyone still alive, they would never see these crewmates again.

After everyone stepped out, Green sealed the door back up. They could see White’s helmet through the small window in the airlock door. It was difficult to imagine the blue, cold face they had only seen once used to live and breathe behind the helmet. The prayer finished and the opposite door slid open. White shifted out into the space behind the ship, slowly becoming another white speck on the horizon.

They had told the rest of the crew that it was a simple coincidence. White’s suit malfunctioned causing him to suffocate. His limp body landed on the remote controls for the reactor; nothing more, nothing less. The tense atmosphere in the ship lessened and almost completely dissipated. But that didn’t stop crewmates from jumping at the smallest shift in shadows, checking and rechecking the echoes of light from their watches, sleeping with one eye open.

It felt like early morning when Green heard someone shuffling around in the barracks outside their door. It was too dark to see who it was, but there was the distinct sound of metal panels moving. Quickly weighing the pros and cons, Green slid out of bed, hopped into their suit, and attempted to follow.

It was quiet. Nothing moved on board. The various hums of the lights and the engine followed Green down the corridor. A shadow disappeared around the corner. Green tiptoed the best they could, attempting to follow, yet the shadow remained a few steps ahead. Something metal shifted to Green’s right. Electrical? What could Yellow possibly be working on at this hour?

The lights were dim as Green toed the doorway before stepping inside. This was either an elaborate trap that they had fallen for hook, line, and sinker, or they were about to witness someone else’s murder. Everyone knew electrical was one of the most dangerous places on the ship. Most of the room was blocked off from the doorway, only one clear entrance and exit; it was one of the worst places to get trapped in. And yet here Green was, casually following a sound they heard at butt o’clock in the morning. Yellow would be the first one to find Green in the morning a few hours later. That is, if she remembered to do her daily checklist at all. But Green crept in further still.

They peeked their head around the middle console that split the room, half expecting an ambush, half expecting nothing to be there. A body. Green jumped back. Was it alive? There was definitely movement since more metallic shuffles could be heard. Green peeked again.

Even in the dim light, Green could just make out a yellow suit in the darkness. She was crouched down in the very back corner of the room, playing with something in the floor. Neatly stacked panels lay to the sides of her along with a pair of gloves.

A pop of a cork. Green flinched back behind the wall before realizing that there was a new sound. Liquid pouring. One more peek won’t hurt.

Yellow had taken off her helmet. Her black hair contrasted with the bright yellow suit, even in the dim lights. Green watched her head tilt back as she chugged from a bottle. The medical smell wafted over to Green as they wrinkled their nose. Alcohol.

As long as Yellow’s secret was simply alcohol and not a nefarious scheme, Green could let it slide. They snuck back to the barracks as quietly as possible just in case there was someone else awake and tried to get more shut eye for the few hours before morning.

Green’s alarm never went off. They sat up bleary-eyed, blinking away sleep to find that the only people left in the barracks were trying to leave as quickly as possible. That’s when the lights on their watch caught their eye. Another emergency meeting. Green paled. But better to go and find out what happened than miss out and be accused.

And so they headed to the cafeteria to find another empty chair.

“-aren’t you supposed to be the one in charge of looking out for this kind of shit?”

“I’m monitoring everyone! Why don’t you ask Purple...”

“...There is an imposter here! We’re getting picked off...!”

“... Orange, she’s the only one who goes ...”

Green quietly took their seat. It was too chaotic. Red was pointing fingers at Cyan who looked like he would flip the table. Purple was arguing with Orange a bit more civilly but arguing nonetheless. Blue was attempting to console Lime, who was holding their head in their hands. Pink was sitting back, taking it all in, watching Red and Cyan have at it.

“Woah, woah, woah, you guys! What’s going on?” shouted Green.

The yelling stopped but everyone remained frozen in place, all eyes on Green now.

Red turned to Green, towering over them. “What’s going on? What’s going on?!? Are you deaf? Yellow is missing, you buffoon!” Red reached out to grab Green’s helmet, but Pink threw an arm out before he could.

“How was Green supposed to know that?!? They just woke up! Now settle down!” Blue gave Lime one final shoulder pat then stood up. “Everyone is here right now except for Yellow. This has happened before, remember? She didn’t turn up until dinner a few days ago. Let’s just all split up and go look for her. Purple with Green and Red searching starboard. I’m with Pink searching the bow. Lime, Cyan, and Orange take the stern. Call another emergency meeting if no one can find her.”

This is one crazy nightmare after another. Red, still huffing, pushed his way toward storage. Green glanced at Purple, shaking their head. Purple nodded in agreement. The group split, going their separate ways. Purple and Green tried keeping up with Red, but he disappeared around the corner too soon.

“Uhh, Red? Where’d you go?”

“We kinda need to stick together...”

After circling around in storage for a bit, Purple turned to Green. “Well,” said Purple, placing her hands on her hips, “I’ll go towards electrical and you go towards shields, alright?”

Green nodded. It didn’t look like Yellow was here and Red’s disappearance didn’t help matters. Purple left toward storage.

Green rounded the bend around some boxes when something pushed them over. Their head collided with a metal box and clanged to the floor. Thank goodness for the helmets.

A body straddled Green as they lay on the floor, reaching for Green’s arms to separate the hands desperately trying to call for help on the watch.

“Help! Hel-”

Green’s cries were cut off by their head being thrown onto the floor again.

“Shut the fuck up! I’m not gonna hurt you if you cooperate!”

“Mngh, Red?” Green squinted. Between the pulsing red and black vision, they could just make out the classic red suit.

“Listen, punk, I was up on cams all night last night. And guess what I saw.”

When Green didn’t immediately answer back, Red pushed his helmet closer to Green’s and slammed it down.

“Guess what I saw!”

Green groaned. “What?”

“I saw you following Yellow out of barracks and down the hallway through storage.” Red sat up, towering over Green. “And now Yellow’s missing. Care to explain?”

Green was still too disorientated to say anything more than, “mmh, was curious. Looked… suspicious.”

“That doesn’t exactly answer my question, buddy. I’ll ask one more time or else I’m calling the meeting. Why were you following Yellow last night?”

“She...suspicious. Wanted to know if something was happening. She drank. I left and back to bed.”

“What did she drink? Green! What did she drink?”

“Hnng, alcohol.”

“Green! I found her! I found...woah. Red?!? Get off them!” Purple’s voice cut through the ringing in Green’s ears and suddenly there wasn’t a weight on them anymore.

Purple reached out a hand to the woozy Green, pulling them onto their feet as best as possible.

“What the hell, Red?!? You better explain yourself otherwise I’m calling a meeting!”

Red was sitting on the ground looking up at Purple, angry. “Fine! I saw Yellow on the cams last night. But she had a tail.” Red gestured to Green who was still trying to shake off the dizziness.

“Green, is this true?” Purple turned toward Green.

Green nodded, wincing. “I, I heard her get up and followed her just in case she was doing something. She was in electrical drinking from her stash. I left her alone after that and went back to bed.”

Purple squinted. “You’re either telling the truth or you’re the imposter.”

“No. The truth,” Green shook their head.

“Well, you guys have to come see what’s going on in electrical, then.” She extended an arm out toward Red who begrudgingly grabbed it and pulled himself up.

They made their way to electrical to find Lime, Cyan, and Orange already there.

“Good, the more, the merrier.”

Green and Red pushed their way in and found Yellow slouched in the same spot Green had seen her last night. An empty liquor bottle laid at her feet. A light flickered onto bits of broken glass.

“She’s been dead for a few hours now,” said Purple quietly from the back. “I’m guessing alcohol poisoning judging from the amount of empty bottles.” Red elbowed Green, ready to make another accusation, but Green pointed to Yellow’s corner.

“Look, at her feet.”

There lay a smaller vial, not unlike the test tubes from the medbay. What’s more was that the vent cover on the floor lay slightly ajar in the frame.

“The vents,” both Green and Red said at the same time, Red shooting Green a look.

The others tried crowding around them to get a good look at this new discovery, but Purple pushed her way through to find the vial on the floor.

“Well, this doesn’t look good.” She turned to the people above her. “I still think it’s poisoning, but it’s not alcohol.”


	3. The Answer?

“Someone here is guilty!”

“Yeah, but do we want to risk killing someone who isn’t?”

“Gahh, you are all impossible to work with!”

They were back around the lunchroom table, duking it out. Red threw his hands into the air and stormed out. Purple sighed and buried her head under her hands on the table. It was not going well.

“How about we take a moment or two, collect our thoughts, come back to it tomorrow?” said Lime.

Blue nodded. “Fine by me. I recommend that we all pick a buddy to stay with though, just in case since Yellow was for sure poisoned.”

Green agreed. After all, they were certain that Purple was innocent. The others? Not so much.

The crewmates settled down as night settled in. It was quiet, peaceful almost. Green laughed to themselves. Tonight was ironically the safest since everyone was so stressed out about the killer. There would be eyes everywhere, not to mention caffeine-riddled Red on cams all night.

Green hung their suit in the small closet and placed their helmet on the nightstand. It was a small room, but it was private. Just enough space to hang the suit and squeeze a bed in there. The earlier ship models had a common room with everyone sleeping together, but Green guessed as time went on, they learned to start separating everyone out. Quarantine purposes, they said. But everyone knew the real reason was to keep identities a secret just in case there were spies aboard.

Green got into bed and flipped off the light. There was a soft light around the baseboard of the room reminding them of a sunset on a lake. A memory from a long time ago. Green sighed. They were tired but not at the same time.

Yellow had her send-off earlier. Much like the night, it was somber but serene. Green hadn’t known Yellow that well at all, but it was nice to know that she was finally free from her addiction at last. Space was a vast, lonely place, but it gained another star that day.

Green listened to the reactor’s lullaby. Maybe Orange was right, the reactor was kind of worthy of the title “Baby”. After all, it was reliable, efficient; Orange did a pretty good job.

Now that Green thought a bit more about it, this crew might be one of the dumbest crews they had worked with, but damn were they good at their jobs. Cyan’s meals were intriguing to say the least. At least it was something new with the generic ingredients usually found aboard the ships. Orange had the reactor’s mechanics down to a T, and she knew when it was time for the checkups. Speaking of checkups, Purple was the most organized medic Green had seen yet. She kept the info up to date and knew where everything was in that mess of a medbay closet. Lime was technically only in charge of keeping the air ducts clean, but they had started keeping plants too. It livened up the dreary metallic place. Blue was so on top of engine repair that he spent most of his time hanging out with Pink and helping with the cleaning.

It was crazy that the imposter would go so far with completing their tasks only to kill everyone on board. Training never covered that. It was always “ways that imposters show themselves” and “imposters are dumb, here’s common methods that they use.” But that data was only from ships that returned. There wasn’t any data on the ships that didn’t return.

Sure, Green was worried about the imposter on board, but it felt like they were so stressed, it wrapped around to tranquility. Green’s eyes drooped lower until the next thing they knew, the ship was dark.

Now, it was normal for their internal clocks to get messed up during trips, and the ship compensated for that. However, this was completely in the dark. None of the dimmed night lights were on. The emergency lights weren’t even on.

Green waved a hand in front of their face, accidentally smacking it on the side of their nightstand. Cursing, they fumbled around trying to find their watch. What the hell was going on?

With the dim light of the watch face, they pushed their door open into the barracks to see a female face lit up by her watch looking back from across the hall.

_“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”_

Green pulled away and slammed the door closed. They knew that they were in their pajamas and not in their suit but they forgot that the others were also more than likely out of their suits as well. Green debated putting on their suit to go investigate, keeping their identity hidden, but they might miss out on important things like they did with Yellow last night. Good God, was that really only last night?

Green took a deep breath and opened the door again. The white-lit face was gone. But a scream took its place. It was a few doors down in the barracks and Green was going to catch the imposter in the act. It seemed like everyone else in the area had the same idea.

There were two others trying to get into the room, too. A man and a woman. Green had no idea who they were without their suits on. But they all entered anyways. Unsurprisingly, it was dark in the room as well, but Green tried to illuminate it the best they could with their watch.

There was a figure stooped over the bed, holding a knife. Their eyes lit up much like a deer in headlights, reflecting the light in the same way the knife did. Green noticed something dark on the knife, dripping down.

“Oh no.”

The man next to Green screamed something inhumane and rushed forward to tackle the maniac to the floor. Green could hear the scuffle, but they were more focused on the figure in the bed. More dark liquid oozing out. The sheets were soaked in the inky substance. The man in the bed wasn’t moving. Green couldn’t look away. They wanted to catch the imposter in the act, but they hadn’t actually thought it would be the imposter.

The lights flickered on. The knife skittered under the bed and stopped at Green’s feet. The scuffle stopped and a man stood on the other side of the bed out of breath.

“Got em,” he said, gesturing down. He laid eyes on the presumed corpse. “Oh shit.” He fell with a thud.

The woman sprung up from the side of the lifeless body in the bed to the unconscious ones on the floor.

Green's watch crackled. “Hey, is everything good over there? It took me a while to figure out what’s going on in electrical since, you know.”

“Uhh, yeah,” said Green into their watch, still unable to look away from the scene of the crime. “We’re good. I think. Some shit went down though.”

“Green?” The woman’s face popped up from the other side of the bed. “That’s what you look like?”

Green shifted their weight. “Uh, yeah. This is what I look like.” Green still didn’t know who they were talking to, who the other men were, who just died...well, judging from the blue suit hanging, it was probably Blue.

“It’s me, Purple.”

“Oh. _Oh!_ ” So that’s what Purple looked like. Green thought they recognized her from those eyes and eyebrows, but it was nice to be sure.

“What happened to those two over there?”

“Well, it kind of looks like this one knocked out the murderer then fainted from shock.”

“Hey, can I get role real quick?” asked Green into their watch.

“Orange reporting from electrical, on my way back to the barracks.”

“Red. Security.”

“Okay, so who’s the other two?”

Purple shrugged, standing up. “Guess we’ll have to take them to medbay and match medical records.”

Green nodded. Seemed like the only logical thing to do. “But first, I’m gonna put a suit on.”

They managed to find a stretcher in the medbay and tied the attacker to it. At least, they thought he was the attacker. He was the one that was covered in the most blood, after all.

The other man had woken up, a bit confused, but insisted he was Pink. He couldn’t keep from crying about what had happened to Blue. All that Purple did for him was send him to his room while they cleaned up the mess.

Red came over to medbay just as the attacker was waking up. “Looks like we’ve got our killer, guys.”

“Yeah, we’ll probably call a meeting to decide what to do with him.”

Red scoffed, “Why wait? We know he killed Blue; let’s just toss him out now.”

The man shifted, coming to realize that he was tied down on the stretcher still. He clenched and unclenched his hands while gritting through his teeth, “You don’t understand! I had to! I had to kill him!”

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, hold on a second,” Green said, holding up their hands and approaching the man, “Why did you have to kill him?”

“Because he was the imposter! I’m sure of it! He had to have been! No one can stay this calm in this sort of situation and be innocent! It was either him or Pink!”

“Wait, you thought Pink might’ve been the imposter?”

“No, no, no!” The man calmed down, tears forming in his eyes. “Blue was going to kill Pink, and I...couldn’t let that happen to him.” He didn’t make eye contact with any of them, choosing to look up at the ceiling instead.

“I’m still confused as to why you thought it was Blue.” Purple sat down on one of the lab’s chairs.

“Look at the evidence. When was the last time you saw him in the engine? He hasn’t been doing his job! I watch him day in and day out through the kitchen window to see him flirt with Pink, play cards with Pink, help Pink wipe down the tables. He was creating an alibi is what he’s doing.” The man was still angry, but it sounded almost shameful now.

Green squinted in confusion. “Wait, who are you?”

“Cyan.” It was barely audible.

“Well, doesn’t matter! You killed someone, so you probably killed the others, too!” Red marched forward, grabbing the stretcher and pushing Cyan out of the room.

“Stop! Wait, Red! We can be civil about this!”

“Stop! I didn’t kill anyone but Blue! I’m not the imposter! You’re insane, Red!” Cyan screamed down the hall, trying to wriggle out of his bonds.

Purple ran ahead and placed a hand on the stretcher, attempting to slow him down. Green was just trying to keep up with the trio.

“We’ve been too nice these past few days! We need to take action now! How many more unneeded deaths are you going to sit and watch before you decide to do something about them, huh?” Red steered the stretcher into the wall, pushing Purple off it. He then shoulder-checked her into Green and both of them fell to the floor.

By the time Green untangled themselves from Purple, Red was already at the air-lock’s doors. “Goodbye imposter.” Red shoved Cyan into the air-lock. The door closed, silencing Cyan’s protests and screams.

He hit the button.

Green, out of breath, could only watch Cyan wiggle furiously only to disappear in the distance as the ship continued along its path.

“What the fuck, Red?”

“How could you just sentence a man to death?” Purple was furious. She pushed Red as hard as she could. Red staggered a few steps back, then lunged forward.

“I sentenced a man to death? No, he sentenced himself to death when he killed Blue.” Red bent down to get in Purple’s face. “I was only delivering justice.”

“But we could have talked about it first! Get a group consensus! Maybe hear Cyan’s side of the story.”

“And let an open killer walk these halls after he convinces you guys he’s not the imposter? You may want that, but I’m not taking those chances.”

“Maybe Red’s right,” said Green, joining up with Purple. “That risk was too great.”

“Maybe, but I still feel like we should call a meeting or something to tell everyone about it.”

“Oh, so we can tear each other’s throats apart during this meeting! I don’t want any more unnecessary heads to roll after this, okay? We got the killer, let’s just wait a few more days until we get to the colony.”

“But what if we didn’t get the killer?” asked Green. “Cyan said he wasn’t the killer. Maybe he was telling the truth.”

“And I’m saying I’m the Queen of England, but that doesn’t mean it's true is it? Cyan’s a liar just like how he is a killer.”

“Come on, man. You’ve been gunning for Cyan since the beginning.”

“Listen here, you little shit.” Red turned around with a finger pointed at Green and began stalking towards him. “I saved your guys’ lives and you’d better be grateful.”

“Save it, Red. Not everyone is accounted for.”

Green could see the gears turning in Red and Purple’s heads reaching the same conclusion as they had earlier.

“Where’s Lime?”

It was almost comedic timing. Another alarm started blaring. The oxygen was malfunctioning.

The problem was, there were two controls for oxygen. One in the room itself and one down the hall from the barracks at the control panel. Purple and Red split off toward the barracks. Green shook their head as they ran into the other hallway. They hadn’t been over here since White’s death. Green faltered, catching their leg on a chair. Now was not the time to be thinking about death.

When they got to Oxygen, the door was partially opened. No one was there. The room still had power, thank God, but it was eerie. Mint fluorescent lights clashed with the red alarm as Green tried to remember where the shut off valve was.

Where was Lime in all of this? They didn’t answer back on the radio, they obviously weren’t here in Oxygen. Even if Lime had fallen asleep in a weird place again, they should have heard the alarms blaring and came straight here.

Thankfully, Green spotted the shut off valve and punched in the scribbles Lime had written on the sticky note. The alarm stopped, leaving the room to its unnatural mint lighting. Green was getting creeped out. They were leaving and going to find Purple and Red.

On the way out, Green had thought that they saw something move out of the corner of their eye in the semi-darkness. Probably nothing.

Green tripped on something that hadn’t been there when they entered the room, falling face first onto the floor. A...boot? Green followed the boot up to the body it was attached to. The suit looked white in the lighting. But White was dead. White gave a small wave and pressed the outstretched foot onto Green’s back.

“Now, now, now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves just quite yet.”

They didn’t recognize the voice. It was much too deep to be anyone still on the ship.

“W-white! But how?”

The boot pushed down harder, cutting off some of Green’s air.

“I thought you...I saw you leave the ship. We all did.”

“Accidents happen, don’t they, Green?” Green flinched at the venom in the words. “You would know all about them wouldn’t you?”

The pressure on Green’s back left momentarily before there was a blossoming pain in their ribs. Green groaned from the kick.

“You’re lucky I’m still here. Always watching. Always waiting. Waiting for the chance for you to mess up again.” White circled around and squatted in front of Green. They lifted Green’s head up to look into Green’s eyes. “And we both know what will happen when you do.”

Green knew. Of course they knew. They closed their eyes. It was all a bad dream. That was it. A bad dream.

“Green? Hello? Where are you?” A voice rang from the hallway.

“You’re lucky you have allies to watch your back for you, scum,” White hissed.

“Green? Are you okay?” The voice grew louder and Green felt the pressure disappear from their chin.

“Oh my! Green!”

A new pair of hands were working on Green now. “I’ve got you, buddy! Don’t worry!”

Green didn’t have the strength to lift their head or open their eyes. A bad dream. A bad dream. That’s all it was.

Whoever it was pulled Green down a hallway toward more voices.

“Lime! What happened to Green?”

“Are they okay?”

“Get them to medbay, stat!”

Green didn’t care. They didn’t open their eyes to the frantic voices and shakes. They didn’t move when someone accidentally dropped their limp arm onto the floor and let it drag. They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Everything mattered. One more mistake, no matter how small would cost them. Everything they’ve worked for. Everything they’ve become.


	4. How Much Can a Heart Ache?

It was too simple. Lime had turned the corner where Green was last seen. Now Green was unresponsive. But these simpletons didn’t want to act on it, instead choosing to hear Lime’s story. They were wasting time. Even though Cyan might not’ve been the imposter, getting rid of him was still the best option. Lime needed to go, too.

Red huffed. No one was listening. “I’ve told you time and time again, this is too much of a coincidence to rule out!”

“But Red, you acted way too quickly when deciding about Cyan!”

“I thought we were over this already! Cyan 100% killed someone. How do we know he hadn’t killed anyone else or better yet, wouldn’t kill again? HMM?” Red was starting to get pissed. But he would remain civil. Civil. Loud words are better than loud fists. Yes, he won’t get into a fight. He exhaled heavily through his nose. He was calm.

“Ok, Lime, where the fuck were you? What happened to Green, so help me God you had nothing to do with that!” Purple shouted, one hand pressed firmly on the cafeteria table, the other pointing menacingly upward. Purple was definitely stressed. Red maybe hoped this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back for her. She would definitely be a threat in a fight. Just not against Red.

“When the lights went out, I left and knocked on Orange’s door since we agreed to be buddies. She said she was going to try and fix the lights. Well, I didn’t have my suit on at the time,so I went back to my room to put it on. When I was ready to go, Orange had already left, so I was on my way to Electrical to find her. But my watch wasn’t working right, so I thought I could drop it off in Communications along the way. But Green wasn’t in there. Which made sense since mostly everyone was still sleeping and the whole “lights went out thing”. I guess that’s when you guys asked for role call? I never got the message since the watch was busted. I got to electrical just as Orange was leaving after fixing the lights. We started walking back to the barracks when I asked her if she could radio Green to meet me in Comms to fix my watch. She did, and Green said they’d be there in a second, so I split from Orange and hung out in comms for a bit.”

Lime paused, playing with their gloves.

“What else?” asked Purple. Red nodded in agreement. There had to be something in their story that didn’t make sense.

“Well...here’s the thing. I don’t remember anything after that.”

Red shot Purple a look. Purple was just as confused as Red. Pink held his head in his hands while Orange stared blankly at Lime.

“What do you mean you don’t remember?”

“I, uh, don’t remember.” Lime shook their head. I remember sitting in the chair at comms, looking at the fancy machines while waiting for Green. Then nothing. I woke up on the floor in comms. I was confused from the sudden nap and went over to Oxygen since that’s what I usually do when I fall asleep around the ship.”

Red sighed. It sounded legit. “But how did you find Green?”

Lime shot him an underlook, genuine fear in their eyes.

“I heard a voice that sounded like Green. So I called out to them. When I finally rounded the corner, they were facedown on the floor of Oxygen, unresponsive.”

“Well, they’re alive at the very least. Still breathing fine but not responding,” said Purple, shifting her weight in the chair. “It is possible that Green suffered a blow to the head, but it would’ve damaged the helmet, too.”

Red had heard enough. “Well, now that we’ve heard Lime’s story, can we now throw the suspect out of the ship?”

“No!” shouted everyone else.

“Why not? They’re the only one who could have done shit to Green! First the oxygen alarm goes off, then Lime’s not there, but suddenly, oh look, Lime found Green who is now unresponsive! It’s obviously Lime, there’s no other way around it!”

“But Red! You saw me during the power outage, didn’t you? I was on the cameras walking with Orange, there was no way that you missed me!”

Red had forgotten about that. Yes, he did see Lime walking through the hallways first alone and then with Orange. He also saw Lime enter comms alone. It was possible Lime was telling the truth. He squinted and crossed his arms. The others took it as a sign that Lime was telling the truth.

“Okay, so Lime’s innocent,” said Purple. “We know that Pink was in his room resting up while the alarm was going off. I was with Red. So, where were you, Orange?”

“I was sleeping in the barracks,” she shrugged, “I know it’s not much of an alibi, but it’s genuinely what I was doing.”

Red nodded. Orange was at the barracks at the same time Lime was in comms. “I really don’t know what to say anymore. It seems like everyone here is as innocent as the next person.”

“What if this was just a coincidence?” asked Purple.

Red squinted. Last time Purple said there was a coincidence, she was covering up an imposter play.

Purple noticed the change in the room and hurriedly said, “I mean, you were initially right, Red, in pinning Cyan to be the imposter, but Cyan had already rigged the oxygen to start malfunctioning. Both Green and Lime were in the area that oxygen affects the most, so it’s not too far-fetched if they both passed out.”

Red nodded. She made sense, especially when she said Red was right. “So is that good then? Did we kick out the right person?”

“I think so,” said Orange, standing up and stretching.

Pink lifted his head to look around. “I just can’t believe Cyan was the imposter. I...I just can’t.” He gave a defeated laugh. “He was just, so nice to me, ya know?”

“Well,” said Red, clasping a hand on Pink’s shoulder, “you helped take him down, so there’s that.”

“I mean, obviously! He killed Blue! That fucker had to pay!”

“And pay he did.” Red stood up, too. “Aren’t we at the colony in like two days? Boy, we sure’ll have a story to tell!”

The others just nodded and kind of ambled away to their posts.

“See, I was right,” Red elbowed Purple as they walked toward medbay.

Purple gave him a sharp glance.

Red snickered. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to mention you when I get awarded for my bravery.”

Purple just rolled her eyes and turned away, but Red could see the smile she tried to hide.

After a moment of silence, Purple spoke up. “You know, Red, you’ve been pretty spot on with Cyan this whole time.”

Red nodded. “Yeah, I knew it was that fucker since I met ‘em. He just didn’t sit well with me, ya know?”

Purple agreed. “It’s just so weird. We’ve been eating the meals he’s been preparing for us. Why go through all that effort if he was the killer?”

Red shrugged. He truly didn’t know, but at this point, it didn’t matter.

They reached the door to the medbay.

“Well, we got him. I’ll catch you later.” Red turned to head toward security as Purple entered medbay.

Purple was cool. Like real cool, decided Red. It would be great if they could stay on the same team after this. He couldn’t see why the agency wouldn’t pair them together. Surviving an imposter attack usually gave the crewmates first dibs on their next assignment.

Red had just reached the security room when he noticed something peculiar on the cameras. A lone figure moving down an otherwise empty hallway. Red took a step closer, making sure he wasn’t seeing things.

The figure wasn’t just moving, they were floating. And it looked like, no it couldn’t be. It looked like White’s suit, stiffly floating in front of communications.

Red paled, eyes frozen to the monitor. It couldn’t be White, unless…? Someone had taken White’s spare from his room? No, everyone was just at the emergency meeting...oh no.

Red raced out of the security office, leaving his chair spinning and ran toward medbay. He had to find Purple. He had to find her.

He pushed the medbay door open. She wasn’t there. Green also wasn’t there. Where did she go?

Red pressed onward into the cafeteria. He could start to hear voices now, coming from the storage area.

Green’s body lay in the hallway before storage. It looked like someone was dragging and dropped them. Red stepped over them.

“-could you?!?”

“I would never, you know I would never lie to you!”

“You’ve done it before, you can easily do it again!”

“Yeah, what makes you have more authority than I do? Think you’re special because you went to med school? Ha! You couldn’t even do my job!”

“Calm down guys! You’re going to do something irrational!”

“Of course it wasn’t Cyan, it was you the whole time!”

Red stopped at the threshold of storage.

Pink, Lime, and Orange had cornered Purple against the back wall.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

The trio turned to look back in surprise that quickly turned to anger.

“He’s behind it, too!”

“Yeah, no one can be that bad at cameras!”

Red was just confused, overwhelmed, but most of all angry. Purple shot him a scared look as she tried to make a run for it under Pink’s arm.

“Not so fast!” Orange shoved Purple to the floor where she landed on a few metal boxes. Purple lay groaning in pain while Red was trying to keep his cool.

Lime and Pink marched right up to Red and grabbed a hold of his suit. Red’s hands instinctively latched onto Pink’s as he forcefully pulled them off him. “Do. Not. Touch. Me. Again,” Red spoke through clenched teeth.

Lime backed off, the scaredy cat they were, but Pink continued to push forward, ripping his hands out of Red’s grasp. Pink took a swing, Red ducked. Buried training was kicking in. So much for trying to be on good behavior.

Pink threw a punch at Red’s head, Red countered and landed one in Pink’s gut. Pink doubled over, wheezing, and Red caught a glimpse of Orange repeatedly slamming Purple into the boxes under her.

He saw red. He didn’t even know what was happening until he pushed down on the lever. As the heartbeat slowed down in his ears, he realized that the fight behind him had stopped. He let go. The garbage chute doors closed with a click.

“What did you do?”

Red stared at the hand that had pulled the lever. He didn’t mean to. He, well, he just, um.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?”

Lime was in hysterics, Pink just stared at Red in disbelief.

“How could you throw her down the garbage chute?”

“I don’t know.” Red truly didn’t know. He had tried so hard to not lose control. So many lessons. So much time. So much effort. All gone. There was no way he could rebound from this. There was no way the agency would let him back in again.

Red looked up at Purple. She was still. Unmoving. The life she once had. Gone. All that potential. Gone. Red looked out the storage window. Another fruitful life. Gone. What had he done?

He nodded, looking down at the floor. He stepped around the silent two. They didn’t stop him. He stepped over Green’s silent body. For once, he wished Green was awake. Even though they were creepy, they could’ve at least had enough strength to stop Red before he snapped. No, this was Red’s fault. Completely Red’s fault. And the punishment must fit the crime.

“Wait, Red!”

But it was too late. Red had made up his mind. The airlock window hissed shut just as Lime and Pink reached him.

“Stop, Red! We know it was an accident! Get out of there!”

Their words meant nothing.

Red pushed the button.

The ship left him in the dust. Now it was just him and the stars.


	5. The Answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you figured out the mystery yet? :)
> 
> Thank you for such positive feedback on my first fic! :D

They hadn’t meant to kill her. Honestly. In fact, Lime was nowhere near the fighting that went down last night. Well, they were there, but they didn’t do anything. Especially not killing Purple.

Pink was doing his best explaining what exactly happened last night to a silent, staring Green. He was stumbling over his words, backtracking, sweating; yet Green never did so much as bat an eye. This was not going well.

Green had woken up a few hours ago. They had asked them what was wrong, but Green simply shrugged it off, saying they were fine, just dehydrated. From what Lime could tell, those weren’t the signs of dehydration.

“Is this all true, Lime?”

Lime jumped in the seat. “Ye-yeah. It’s all true. I was there.”

Green sighed and dropped their head. “I just thought it was going to be better, especially after we found out who the imposter was.”

Lime and Pink shared a look. Pink began, “Well, you see Green, we hadn’t-”

“-We should be good now that all this fighting is out of everyone’s system,” Green dismissed them with a wave of a hand. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, don’t we, now that most of the crew is dead.” Green stood up, heading to the barracks.

“Wait! Oh-” Pink trailed off and turned to Lime. “Maybe you can try.”

Lime shrugged and shook their head. They didn’t have anything to add. Lime stood and left Pink to himself in the cafeteria.

What would they do once the ship landed? Of course, they would have to go through rigorous questioning in order to prove that they weren’t a part of the imposter’s scheme. And, once proven innocent, they’d have to go through more questioning detailing exactly what went down so that it could be used in analysis. Lime shivered. They didn’t think they could ever retell what happened here. They didn’t even know if they wanted back on a ship like this. Maybe settle down somewhere on the colony. Like a nice lab. Yeah, lab work on the ground would be great for nerves like this.

As Lime rounded the corner to Oxygen, they found the room exactly as how they left it. Or almost exactly. The comforting mint fluorescent lights lit up all of their kids: Sarah, Margret, Elanor, Elizabeth, Agatha, and Rosemary. Lime smiled. Rosemary the potato plant was always their favorite. The vat of liquid swirled and bubbles still rose at a steady pace. The air filtration system was still kicking, but Lime noticed something weird on the floor in front of the emergency shut off. A small dark spec. Well, a few dark specs as Lime followed the trail toward the door. Where had they come from?

Lime sighed and went back to work tending to the kids. It was lunchtime after all. The splatters were probably from the fight earlier. Lime sang softly as they pushed their doubts to the back of their mind.

Later, Lime was getting drowsy from another long day of working. As they entered the barracks, they couldn’t help but glance at all of the closed doors who's owners wouldn’t be returning to their beds that night. Orange, Blue, Yellow, Cyan, Red, Purple, White; there were so many of them dead. So many lives lost. It wasn't fair that all this _stuff_ was going on.

As they came upon their door, they spotted a note taped onto it. It read, “Lime, meet me in comms. I have something for you.”

That was weird. Why wouldn’t Green just give it to them in the barracks? Whatever it was must’ve been important. Lime sighed, looking at their welcoming bed, and headed to comms.

When they got there, the room was darker than average, but they could still see Green doing what could only be described as lounging in their chair. Their back was to the door, and their feet were up on the table in front of them.

“H-hi, Green. I, um, saw your note.”

Green put their feet down and spun in their chair to face Lime. They had taken their helmet off. Lime didn’t think they had ever seen Green’s face before. They thought that Green was more of a stickler for the rules.

“Good, gladja could make it.” They sat there, breathing deep, staring up at Lime.

Lime’s eyebrows rose in question as they realized Green had one of Yellow’s bottles clutched in their hand. “You, uh, do you have something for me?”

“Ah, yeah. Forgo’bout that. Here, fixed it up from White. ‘Membered you needed one still.” Green swiveled to the desk and around again to underhand throw a watch to Lime.

“Well, uh, thanks Green. You know we’re going to get new equipment at the colony, right?”

“Yeah, figured you’d use it in the meantime.”

“Yeah, ok.” Lime slid the watch into their pocket and glanced at how tightly Green was grasping the bottle's neck. “Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but where’d you get that bottle? I thought we’d thrown them out.”

Green shrugged. “Found it while cleaning.”

“Cleaning? Isn’t that Pink’s job?”

Green chuckled while spinning back to their desk. “I told you, we’d have to start picking up on the other chores now that there’s no one to do them.” They spun back around and flung something at Lime’s feet.

No. It couldn’t be. Lime bent down to pick it up while Green continued to laugh. There were two of them. Gloves. Pink gloves. Lime looked up in horror. “What did you do?”

“Exactly what you think I did, buddy.” Green suddenly stood, silencing their laughter. “Now it’s your turn.” There was no trace of the alcohol in them now. They took a step before Lime realized what was going on.

Lime fell back on their hands, crab-walking away until they flipped over and took off sprinting down the hall to the engines. They could hear Green fading behind them, laughing.

“You can run, but you can’t hide forever, Lime!”

Yes they could. The ship would reach the colony in about 24 hours. They could hide for that long. Or at least evade Green for that long. They turned the sharp corners into the reactor room. Here. Hide. Lime pulled one of the metal wall panels aside and squeezed behind it. There was just enough space to scrunch and place the wall back.

Lime was breathing heavy. They did their best to slow them, quiet them. Anything. Hopefully Green didn’t know about this spot.

It was dark in the wall. There were lots of pipes and tubes but a lot of dangling wires as well. Everytime Lime shuffled a bit, the loose wires would make small tapping sounds on their helmet and the pipes behind them. Lime debated about turning on their watch for a bit of light but decided against it. They weren’t risking anything.

“Oh, Li-ime!” the watch in Lime’s pocket sung out.

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!_

They pulled it out and tried to lower the volume as much as they could without moving the wires too much.

“You’re gonna have to come out eventually! It might as well be now.”

Lime debated about throwing the watch out onto the floor outside the panel, but Green would hear and see it for sure. Why, of all things, did this have to happen to them?

“Oh, Li-ime! Come out, come out where-”

“-Why did you do it?” Lime’s voice was barely a whisper but it was still enough for the watch to pick it up.

Green was silent, seemingly shocked that Lime had said anything. “Lime,” they paused, then Lime could hear the smile creeping back into their voice, “you know why I did it.”

“You’re the imposter.”

“Of course, buddy.”

“But why?”

“Oh, you know. Couldn’t have your nasty agency preying on the colony anymore, now could we? Everyone knows what that colony has. The resources! The location! Why should your agency be the only ones to control it?”

“But we’re not a part of that colony yet! We... _I_ haven’t even seen the place! You killed everyone for no reason!”

“Ah, ah, ah! There was a reason. See, you guys are considered the best of the best. How do you think we landed such a large ship for this trip over, huh? The best of the best is what I’m telling you!”

“Yeah, but why kill us?”

“To weaken the enemy. Take out enemy lines.”

“But all nine of us?”

“Technically eight.” Green fell silent for a second. “There was another imposter on board. White.”

Lime was confused. “So why did you kill him?”

“He was an idiot,” Green snarled. “His plan would’ve never worked. Exiling you guys on a nearby asteroid wouldn’t have done anything except get us caught.”

Lime sat in the dark, illuminated by the monster’s words through the watch. “So you killed him.”

Lime took Green’s silence as a yes.

Lime listened to the ship around them, carrying on as if it wasn’t affected by the conversation happening in its underbelly. “And what were your plans?”

“Pretty much exactly what happened,” Green said. “But I didn’t expect you guys to do so much of the work for me. Guess all of that behind-the-scenes stuff paid off to get put on a ship with that lunatic Red.”

Lime grimaced. They didn’t want to think about what happened.

“Heh, I could tell you about how I killed Pink.”

“No-no, I’m good.” Lime was getting woozy. They didn’t know how they could last for so long on a ship with this demon.

“That’s okay, I can just show you.” The voice didn't come through the watch.

A metal clang resonated around Lime as they jumped out of their skin. The metal panel pulled back to reveal Green’s silhouette.

“There’s a tracker in that watch, you know. Shouldn’t take gifts from known killers.” Green snatched the watch from Lime’s hand and threw it aside.

Lime was too frozen with fear to do anything.

“Come on, buddy.” Green pulled on Lime’s hand, ripping them out from the hole in the wall and dragged them down the hall. They were past the port engine when Lime realized where they were going.

“No wait, stop! You can’t do this!” They began pulling against Green’s grip.

Green laughed. “You’re lucky I don’t have much time today. I have to leave this ship as clean as possible before we get to the colony.” Green pulled Lime close so that their breath fogged Lime's visor. “Otherwise I’d be more messy.”

Lime paled as Green continued the death march.

They stopped in front of the airlock.

“You know, they should probably get rid of these things. Or at least disable them while the engine is running.”

Lime didn’t say anything.

“You ready?”

How could they?

“Well, see you on the other side, Lime.”

The second Green let go of Lime, Lime took off down the hallway. But Green was too fast.

Green caught up to Lime and tackled them into a wall. “Where did you think you were going to go, huh? Can’t escape me. No one escapes me.”

Green pulled Lime onto their back and fireman-carried them over to the airlock door.

Lime pounded on Green’s back, tried kicking them in the side. Nothing was working.

With that, Green slammed the button and threw Lime inside.

“Stop! Green! Stop! No! Stop!” Lime had finally had enough. They were crying, pounding on the door, hoping that Green would open it back up.

The only thing Lime could see through the small porthole was Green’s smiling face, waving as the door behind Lime slid open.

Lime fell back into the open space and watched the door slide close on the monster. Lime’s tears were causing the inside of their visor to fog. The ship grew smaller and smaller until Lime couldn’t tell the difference between it and the surrounding stars.

The imposter had won.

It was too quiet. Lime didn’t like it. The lack of the constant background noises of the ship left a hole Lime didn’t know was being filled.

Lime's eyelids were heavy. They drooped lower and lower until, exhausted, Lime fell asleep to the quiet ticking of their watch.


End file.
